Winter Camping and the Journey Ahead

Last night, I somehow allowed Daniel to convince me to go camping with little to no prodding on his part.  Looking back, I am not exactly sure why I agreed so readily to camping with him the day of our first snowfall and winds at 20mph.  But I did.  And I lived to tell about it.  I don’t think I will go again any time soon but I am very glad for the experience and the ability to say that I did it! We were packed up and driving home around 9AM; on the drive, Daniel thanked me for coming with him to which I responded, “I know a good way to say thank you.”  He guessed Starbucks and right he was.  Nothing like a warm Starbies to make me feel all kinds of happy.  I’ll most likely take the rest of the day to recover (aka raise my body temperature from freezing, apply and then reapply Blue Tansy facial oil to my poor, sensitive wind burned face and do a whole lot of nothing) until Daniel’s niece’s birthday party at 4PM.

When Daniel and I got home, after long, hot showers, we relaxed on the couch with our coffee and dreamt about the future.  I was saying how much I love our little apartment, how cozy it is and how I feel so settled.  We talked about the upcoming holidays and I mentioned wanting a few more YoungLiving products to add to my collection.  I am all about ditching-and-switching but it has been a slow going process.  I told Daniel my goal for 2019 is to cut back on all the perfumes, lotions, candles that are adding toxins to the air/my skin and replace all with more natural products.  He suggested I research how to make these on my own and that actually made me feel giddy.  I love how he supports me and just knows that I would love to do that. Find all the organic, clean products, free of chemicals and hormone-disrupters and create all my own cleaning, beauty products.  I have already dubbed 2019 my year of wellness — physical, emotional and mental.

For physical wellness, I am really good at the starting part, not so much the follow-through-and-get-fit part.  I have a passion for running but soon lose that passion after about a month or so of carrying on the habit.  I have what I think is a “that’s good enough” mentality.  I do really well and as soon as it’s “good enough”, I quit.  Because why keep going when you’ve already reached good enough?  (Hey, I know it’s silly but I’m being honest. Don’t knock my vulnerability!).   I have also had a hard time in Wisconsin once Daylight Savings rolls around and the days grow shorter and seem to stay darker for all but five hours.  I need to keep my mind focused and energized with a game plan this winter and not fall back into the typical I Need A Vacation STAT slump. I’ve already started scratching down ideas in my little black notebook, so excited for this journey.  And now that I have spoken it into existence, I can’t back down.  I will use my 0 readers of this little blog as motivation to keep going.  (But really.)

Nesting, Cont.

How we already celebrated our two-week anniversary as husband and wife is beyond me. The days seem to be getting shorter and shorter, pushing each other out of the way.  I am growing used to the idea of being a wife but at times, it still blindsides me — how am I married?!  Daniel is, by far, the easiest person to live with and I am so happy I chose to do life with him.

This past weekend, we trekked up north to winterize the camper.  The weather required us to bundle up and it snowed most of Saturday which made for the perfect excuse to stay cozy inside playing endless games of Sequence.  We had the prettiest drive on the way to breakfast that morning; blurs of orange high above a white dusted ground made me smile ear to ear. I bought the cutest pair of up-cycled, locally made wool mittens that kept my fingers toasty and will all winter long.

Daniel had us awake and packing by 5:45AM Sunday morning and by 6:30AM, the camper was closed up and we were on our way to the nearest Starbucks (1-hour, 11-minutes away) for warm drinks and paninis. After our pitstop, we were IKEA bound.  (This has become our monthly ritual.)  He told me he wanted to get there early enough because he knew we would be spending about two hours testing out couches… and right he was.  We slowly paced the showrooms testing out just about every couch we saw until we landed on the comfiest, cutest sectional.  Signed, sealed and delivered Monday night, it sits assembled in our living room making our space just that much cozier.  We really really love it — Daniel even calls it his “dream couch”.

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Things we’re going to laugh about one day:

  1. Mom backing into Daniel’s car and crunching the driver’s side door the week of our wedding.
  2. This passed Sunday night, we were both half asleep and rudely awoken by our bedroom window falling off the track.  How?